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Guided Meditation: Awareness Like Space

Hello everyone. It's delightful to sit down here and settle into this posture that's so rich for me in connotations, associations, and in what gets evoked. I've centered in this meditation posture for decades, and it's kind of like a homecoming. To do it together with community, to do it together with all of you, adds a certain depth, width, breadth, and wonderfulness to this beginning of meditation. So thank you.

We're working in meditation and mindfulness with attention, our capacity to be aware. Freedom is a hallmark of Buddhism. One way to understand freedom is that we're setting our awareness free, freeing our attention from the way that our habits of mind take it over and direct it. The habits of mind of wanting or not wanting, pushing or pushing away, holding on, or being preoccupied with certain thoughts, ideas, concerns, and emotions. These habits of mind propel attention in the direction of the concern and propel the attention into the world of thoughts, feelings, or what's happening. In a sense, the attention is not free; the attention is being directed and utilized. Some people might say that attention is being hijacked.

To set attention and awareness free is one of the great pleasures and joys of life. It's almost like we can live a different life. There's room for something different to occur, to animate us, to motivate us, and to connect us to the world when the awareness has been set free. It's almost like a door has been opened wide that was previously closed, or like a light has been turned on where it's been off in the dark.

I want to give a little analogy for this. If a person lives in a very crowded room for a long time—maybe a hoarder—with almost no space in the room to walk around in, and then walks out into a very large room, a comfortable, nice, safe-looking room where there's lots of space. There might be things, furniture, chairs, and different objects there, but immediately what becomes obvious is how much open space there is. In fact, for most rooms, there is more space than there are things in the room. If we're only focused on the things, then sometimes we can miss the open space. I've been in places where there are high ceilings. Here at IMC^[1], there's a very high ceiling over me, and it's easy to spend a long period of time focusing on what's at eye level. But to look up and see the high ceiling, these spacious rooms^[2] open things up in a certain way.

It's possible to shift one's attention from the objects in a room to the space in the room. In the same way, it's possible to be claustrophobic in one's own mind and be an equivalent of a hoarder of the mind, just collecting things, wanting things, fantasizing, and going from one fantasy or thought train overlapping with the next, almost breathless between them. It's possible then to open the metaphorical inner eyes or sense of awareness. We can open it up, look around, and we see that there's actually more space in the mind than there are objects. There's more space in our capacity for awareness, the field of awareness, than there are the things we're preoccupied with or caught in.

If you can look around a little bit in your mind to see the space and the openness, some people might experience that as stillness in the mind, quiet in the mind, or silence in the mind, rather than space. Together with the objects in the room, there is the space. Together with the concerns we have, there's also space. There's also silence, there's also stillness. Let awareness relax into that, to take that in and see that in that space, in that stillness, there is a freedom. Awareness there can find its freedom where it isn't being directed as much. The sweetness of awareness is set free.

So assuming a meditation posture, tenderly closing your eyes. Giving a little bit more attention, maybe than usual, to sitting with a spine or body that feels attentive. For people sitting upright, it's maybe sitting a little bit more upright. For people lying down, it might be adjusting the shoulder blades a little bit and the upper back so that the shoulder blades maybe come in a little bit and the chest is allowed to be more open.

Become attuned to the body's experience of breathing, aware from the inside out. Gently, tenderly, as you exhale, relax your body, soften. Letting there be a gentling of your body together with keeping the alertness of the body.

Then you can stop relaxing the body. But as you exhale now, see if you can relax the mind. Maybe that means to quiet the mind. Maybe your thinking becomes quieter, slower, calm thinking. As you exhale, relax any tension, pressure to think, or to fantasize, or any other way the mind is tense, contracted, or narrow. Allowing the mind to become wide and open. Appreciating whatever stillness there is in the mind.

If you throw a rock through empty space, through the air, nothing is disturbed by the rock. If you play music, the notes travel through the air without disturbing anything. So when we center ourselves in awareness, all kinds of things can arise—thoughts, feelings, and emotions. There's nothing we have to do except experience them. Allow them to appear and travel through the space of awareness without having them disturb anything, and without us disturbing them by getting involved in them.

Perhaps becoming aware that beyond the edges of your concerns, your sensations, and your feelings, there's lots of space, lots of room. Allow whatever particular experiences arise as if they're floating through all the space of the mind that's here. Instead of attention being directed by our concerns, our concerns are held in a wide-open, free awareness. Relaxed mindfulness.

And then as we come to the end of the sitting, is there some deeper way, fuller way that you can relax? If you are more in touch with your body or your mind from this sitting, more settled, you have access to some way to relax more fully. Maybe softening, relaxing at your core inside, in your heart or your mind. Not to do this ambitiously, but just a little bit more.

And then if there is some calm, relaxation, or settledness, seeing if you can maintain it as we now turn our attention to the people of this world, the animals of this world, all the living beings that we share this planet with, in a sense that we're in a family with. Some of these creatures we share the planet with are distant relatives. In this relaxed, settled way, to gaze upon others with kind eyes, with a kind regard. To gaze upon all beings with a generosity of heart.

Perhaps after a session of meditation, it is possible to look upon others in a qualitatively different way than if you're preoccupied and caught up in things. Maybe you have access to a simple kindness and well-wishing. If so, it's useful and health-making to give a simple expression to this well-wishing, without ambition or obligation. Wishing, maybe even saying to yourself:

May all beings be happy. May all beings be safe. May all beings be peaceful. May all beings be free.

And may we live as if we're related to all living beings, because somewhere or some way or other, we actually are.

May all beings be happy.

Announcements

So before I give my talk today, a couple of announcements. One is that next week I'm going to be away, and so Matthew Brensilver will come and teach these early morning 7:00 a.m. teachings here in California. Matthew is a wonderful teacher, and I think you'll be delighted by his teaching and his presence. I'm very happy to have him fill in for me.

The other is that our retreat center, the IRC (Insight Retreat Center)^[3], was going to open at the end of August, but now we decided to delay that probably until the middle of November. The retreats that we were scheduled to do in person now will be online, which means that we can accept more people. If some of you are interested in a chance to do an online retreat, you can go onto IRC's website and see what's available. I think it's all been converted now to online retreats. These online retreats are quite wonderful. It's one of the surprises of the pandemic how beneficial it is for people to do them. So anyway, that's available.

Dharmette: Delusion (5 of 5) Liberation from Delusion

Today is the last talk in this five-part series on delusion. It's also the last talk in the three-week series on the three roots of unwholesome behavior, sometimes called the three poisons: greed, hatred, and delusion.

In conclusion, I'd like to paraphrase the Buddha. He said somewhat emphatically or enthusiastically, "If it was not possible to bring greed, hatred, and delusion to an end, I would not instruct you to do so. But it is possible to put an end to greed, hatred, and delusion, and so this is my instruction."

For many people, it's inconceivable that they can give up these very strong forces in the mind. But this is what Buddhist practice sets out to do, and it's a phenomenally beneficial, dignified, and valuable path to be on. To first alleviate, decrease, and then to have an experience of the absence of greed, hatred, and delusion. That absence is followed by coming to a time where the tendency to greed, hatred, and delusion comes to an end.

One of the things that's quite wonderful about this is that greed, hatred, and delusion are the roots of all unethical behavior—or to say it differently, all behavior that causes intentional or conscious harm to others and even to ourselves. It's a phenomenal thing to become a person who has cleansed themselves or freed themselves from these powerful forces, the consequences of which we can read in the newspaper every day—how people treat each other, and the impact we have on others and the environment. The hope is that there are some people who appreciate the human capacity to become free and act as a model or a beacon for others. It's possible to be on this path. Maybe in this lifetime, we're not going to go all the way to the complete ending of all greed, hatred, and delusion. But the diminishing of it, and having greater and greater periods of time when we're free of it before it comes back, is really marvelous.

What the Buddha teaches is called the Dharma^[4]. Sometimes this Dharma that he teaches is said to be visible here and now, directly perceivable in the present moment. It's not something esoteric and distant, but rather something that's available here. One of the inspiring ways in which he makes it so available in our lives is that the Dharma is visible here and now when we have had the experience of greed, hatred, and delusion, and we experience the mind and heart free of it. That distinction between what it's like to have a mind with greed, hatred, and delusion, and what it's like to have one without—that is where we can see the Dharma in a very profound way.

But it really takes both. Part of this study of greed, hatred, and delusion is a willingness to see it in ourselves, to admit it to ourselves, and to become familiar with all the tricks and ways that greed, hatred, and delusion operate for us. Not to feel bad about ourselves or be depressed by it, but the more familiar we become, the better we are able to recognize it in a clearer way when it's not there. It's like going from a crowded room full of things to an open room. Because we really know what a crowded room is like, the experience of an open room that's free of a lot of crowded things just feels so different, and we really appreciate it. In fact, if the room is spacious, clean, and peaceful enough, it can feel nourishing and delightful to be in it.

To be familiar with greed, hatred, and delusion, to better appreciate and be nourished by the absence of it—that is to see the Dharma here and now. It's not understanding great, profound teachings on emptiness or transcendental states of consciousness as much as it is this clear, ordinary recognition that's possible: the presence and the absence of these things.

As we become familiar with greed, hatred, and delusion—and this week the topic is delusion—we begin to appreciate that all of these have a common characteristic. Maybe we can call it a common denominator, and that is they all involve clinging or grasping. Some people like to think of clinging like plastic cling wrap that just sticks to us. We stick to it, and sometimes you can't get rid of it or unfold it, and it just accompanies us. But grasping is a more powerful clinging. When people grasp with their hands, or with their hearts or minds, we hold on, we don't let go. We claw onto what we want, onto other people or something.

All greed, hatred, and delusion share having clinging and grasping as part of it. There's something we're grasping, something we're clinging to. The experience of becoming really free is the opening up of that grasping hand. It's the relaxing of the clawing hand. It's the softening of the fist or the resisting hand. There's a deep, deep kind of letting go of a knot inside of us, a deep letting go of a contraction, a coagulation that exists within the field of awareness.

To move in that direction, to have a sense that this is possible and to begin to experience this release of clinging and grasping, first in small little experiences in life. Even the smallest letting go, relaxing around something, partakes in part with the liberation of a Buddha. It's just a matter of degree. We're not so different from the Buddha if we begin to appreciate the small degrees in which we live without greed, hatred, and delusion; the small degrees in which we can let go of it and relax around it. Appreciating that, seeing that, valuing it, and valuing ourselves for being on this path supports the growing capacity to let go more deeply and relax more deeply.

It isn't so much that we're letting go of things in the world, which some people protest just means we live a life of radical renunciation and let go of everything. There's some value to that for sure, but it's not letting go of things that is the object of Buddhist practice. It's letting go of the clinging to things. It's letting go of the grasping in the mind. Whether or not we let go of things, or even people sometimes, is secondary; we use our wisdom to know what's best to do there. But it doesn't take much wisdom to appreciate that we're better off not having clinging or grasping in the mind.

The people we do cling to, they really appreciate it many times when we can be with them and love them without clinging to them. If you learn to let go of the clinging, life becomes a whole different game.

Importantly, as we learn not to cling, this non-doing of clinging and grasping lowers the tendency to be caught in delusion, hatred, and greed. We begin seeing how the movement towards delusion, towards greed, towards hatred comes along with an activity of the mind and heart—a contraction, a tightness, a clinging, a tension—that is just not good for us. To really feel and recognize that because we're truly in touch with ourselves gives us the opportunity to recognize something different: the absence of clinging and how good that is.

Our view of the world changes if we're seeing the world through the lens of non-clinging rather than seeing it through the lens of clinging. Seeing the world through the lens of non-greed, non-hatred, and non-delusion. It is possible to do this, and it's more valuable to do this than a lot of other human pursuits. It's more valuable than becoming rich, more valuable than having popularity and all kinds of things.

I wish you much happiness, peace, and well-being. I know that the greatest happiness and peace that's available to you will come when you really let go and release the clinging and grasping in the mind, and free yourself of greed, hatred, and delusion. May it be so.

Thank you for this series, for being part of this, and for listening. I look forward to being back with you in two weeks. Thank you.